“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake.

“She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country — Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It’s true. Come on. (Laughter.) And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years.”

It made the international press. Twitter was on it like a hawk. So were the Republicans. You can’t blame them: If some big-shot GOP politician were to stand in public and suggest the attorney-general of East Dakota had great legs, Democrat gender-purity enforcers would come down on him like a ton of bricks. In fact, a CNN contributor noted that the blowback against Obama would probably have been even fiercer, except “the folks who make up the grievance lobby – are among his strongest supporters”. Because public discourse has become so freighted with absurdist red lines that no U.S. politician can dare make a personal reference of any sort towards any other American without it being interpreted by cyber-ninnies as some sort of an offence.

There are exceptions to this. Kamala Harris could have said Barack Obama was drop-dead gorgeous, and it would have been acceptable. The folks at the fundraiser where Obama’s offence took place would have laughed. The president might have looked sheepish. The worst Republicans could have said was that he is in fact greying quite a bit, and doesn’t look as young as he used to.

Another woman could have complimented Ms. Harris. Mr. Obama might also have gotten away with it if he was gay. But “man says nice thing about woman?” No way Jose.

Thing is, the president and Ms. Harris both say they’ve been friends for years. Digging deep into the controversy, the San Jose Mercury News discovered she had once complimented him on his looks. “He looks and sounds like a million bucks,” she says in a YouTube video. It didn’t make the international press, of course, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman commenting on a man’s looks. It only works the other way.

The president phoned Ms. Harris to “apologize”. A spokesman said he regretted causing a “distraction.” If they’re really friends, as they say they are, I bet there was a lot of laughter on that call. And I bet Ms. Harris wasn’t offended on being complimented by the president. You need to be a real Puritan to get worked up about that stuff any more. But there are a lot of them out there, and they’re all online.